Author: Olaudah Equiano


ISBN: 9780375761157
Pages: 254
Description: Olaudah Equiano and his interesting narrative provide an insight into a time and situation that few people survived to record or recall, and those that did survive were rarely ever literate. For this reason, and so many others, Equiano (or Gustavus Vassa as he was later christened) has a unique story to tell.

Kidnapped from his home in an Ibo village (Nigeria),Equiano is enslaved by people of his own race and traded between tribal groups for over nine months before he finally makes it to the coast where he is put on board a slave ship and forced to endure the horrors of what was known as the middle passage (the journey at the centre of the slavery triangle from Africa to the Americas). The mere fact that he survived this journey when millions of others died is a testament to his will to survive from the very beginning. Following this he was passed between many masters some who Equino says “used him well” and others who treated him with cruelty and tyranical violence. Having learned english, converted to christianity and befriended his master (a ships Captain), Equiano becomes a capable hand before the mast. He travels on numerous barques, sloops and brigs, making journeys from England to Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Jamaica, Georgia, Barbados and the Mosquito coast before savvy trading allows him to save enough money to purchase his deeds of manumission (essentially he bought his own freedom).

However, life as a free man is not simple in the late 18th century and life as a freed slave is even more difficult. Equiano spends half of his time being ripped off by treacherous white traders, ships captains and merchants and more than a few of the people he meets try to press gang him onto boats or sell him on as a runaway slave. Depsite these set backs Equiano, ever the optimist, maintains an outlook which constantly sees the best in everyone.

From the point of view of a maritime archaeologist who lives in works in Liverpool, I found this book interesting for a number of reasons;
Equiano visit Liverpool but provides no description aside from mentioning that he sails from here to Dublin. At this time Liverpool was at its peak of involvement in the slave trade and yet despite visiting Wales, London and even the Midlands, he never make a proper visit to the city where many of the Guineamen (slave ships) were berthed. It might be that the reputation of sailors town on the waterfront precluded a long stay; press ganging, abduction and murder were not uncommon here.

Equiano provides an excellent record of the ships he sails on, noting their type, their names and sometimes their captains or owners. It is interesting to note that near the beginning of his story most of the vessels plying their trade across the Atlantic are of 50 or 60 tons, however as his narrative progresses the vessels have increased in size and now exceed 150 tons. This is indicative of the wealth of the British Merchant fleets as well as advances in Maritime and ship building technology. This kind of increase in size can also be seen in records such as Gomer Williams’ History of the Liverpool Privateers 1744 – 1812.

Equiano converts to christianity and mentally chastises himself for not living according to all ten commandments (he swear aboard ship and works on the sabbath meaning that he’s only achieving a score of 8/10 on the commandments front), yet the white, so called christians; the very men whose religion he has adopted were the ones who enslaved him in the first place. Furthermore he rarely questions how any benevolent god can exist when millions of enslaved Africans are dying.

Equiano, as a free man, actively participates in the slave trade. He works on board boats which carry slaves and even goes to market on behalf of his employer to purchase slaves himself. At no point in his narrative does he express remorse for his part in the trade which was responsible for his own displacement or reflect on his new role at the other end of the perspective (yet he chastises himself for swearing and thus being ungodly). He even mentions that when buying slaves he preferentially selects his own countrymen. Later events in the narrative indicate that this was his way of ensuring that they were better treated and well fed; he knows that this is one way in which he can make their lives tolerable as it is not within his power to assure their comfort or safety in any other way.

Equiano also does a fantastic job of highlighting the perils of seafaring. He made dozens of voyages where some men were lucky to survive more than two or three and his narrative is full of near drownings, wreckings and head on collisions with other boats. Collisions with other vessels are in fact surprisingly numerous which is amazing when you consider the size of the Atlantic Ocean and the lack of formalised shipping lanes at this time!

A brilliant narrative and one that provides a first hand account of the slave trade – this book became a core part of the abolitionist literature when it was published. Well deserving of a place on the 1001 books list and unique in many ways.

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